<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Best Thing I'll Ever Be by HarkaSun</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24830800">The Best Thing I'll Ever Be</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarkaSun/pseuds/HarkaSun'>HarkaSun</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shadowhunters (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Domestic Fluff, Domestic Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Don't Kill Me, Father's Day, Father-Son Relationship, Happy Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I can't write kids, I had to invent a son for them, Lightwood-Banes Being a Family, M/M, Magnus Bane Loves His Family, This was inevitable, Tooth-Rotting Fluff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:14:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,340</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24830800</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarkaSun/pseuds/HarkaSun</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Magnus is awoken on the 21st of June by his and Alec's insistent five-year-old son. Hardly a mundane household, Magnus and Alec have to be reminded of the significance of this day.<br/>Magnus realises that, even though he has had many titles in his life, there is one he had never expected to earn: he is a father.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>154</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Best Thing I'll Ever Be</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I speed-wrote this in a 2 hour panic when I realised the date. Don't judge me; it was obligatory.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Magnus Bane has been called a lot of things in his life.</p><p>It is to be expected. He has done many things and met many people in the course of his very long life. There are facts that everyone must agree to. Magnus is the High Warlock of Alicante, the son of the greater demon Asmodeus, the husband of the Inquisitor. After those, it gets a little hazy.</p><p>To the ones who enjoy or at least tolerate his company, he is an inventor, a guardian, a friend. One of his more enamoured paramours had even coined him a poet, if only because their letters to one another had been works of beauty. In those times, words held more weight and every letter had to be sculpted like art.</p><p>To those who are less tolerant to his ways, however, Magnus is a creature of demon blood, a defiant rebel, an enemy even. One particularly unlucky shadowhunter who had tried to hunt him during the uprising had gone as far as to call him a monster. It was the eyes. Magnus had barely touched the boy.</p><p>For all those titles, all those friends and enemies and lovers, there is one thing that Magnus had never expected to be.</p><p>A father.</p><p>It is indisputable, however. It has been five years since Alec took a team of shadowhunters to search a house allegedly similar to the one Iris had kept, one that forced young women into breeding with demons so that new warlocks might be born. Alec had returned with a baby and a note.</p><p><em>If my son is alive, please take care of him. His name is Elijah</em>. <em>He is good</em>.</p><p>According the Alec, the mother had been dead when they arrived, though still protectively holding her child. It was a sad probability of birthing a warlock. Simply not many women were capable of living through such an ordeal. Even fewer were capable of loving that child once it was born.</p><p>The boy had been quiet from minute one, staring up at Magnus with big blue eyes and not making a sound. After a little probing, Magnus found his mark, two tiny stumps atop his head where horns would grow in. Magnus was relieved to find that this was the child of a very low-tier demon. It meant that it wouldn’t come looking for the boy.</p><p>Elijah is clever and quick and his fathers adore him with everything they have. He is five now, and just about done with his first year of kindergarten. Magnus had enchanted a wristband for him to suppress his magic and glamour his mark, just as a precaution. They wanted him to live as normally as possible for the first years of his life. Mundane kindergarten turned out to be one of their better ideas. Elijah loves it. He loves learning.</p><p>“Ayah,” a little voice whispers and Magnus smiles softly as it breaks through his sleepy reminiscing. “Ayah, are you awake?”</p><p>Magnus hums, recognising the Indonesian immediately. He and Alec agreed that it would be easier to distinguish them via language. They all speak Indonesian, Alec and Elijah as a second language, but English is their first to use around the house. The exception is Elijah using ‘ayah’, the Indonesian for dad, when he’s referring to Magnus.</p><p>“I’m awake,” he murmurs, opens his eyes to see Elijah stood by his bed, little hands gripping the duvet. Soft morning light sheds through the gossamer curtains, casting a warm glow over his son. “Good morning.”</p><p>“Morning, ayah,” Elijah says, still so quiet. “Is daddy awake?”</p><p>Magnus dutifully looks over his shoulder at Alec, who has a limp arm draped over Magnus's waist. His eyes are shut, his mouth open a little. The breaths come deep and steady, a soft rumble to them, almost like a purr.</p><p>“Not yet,” Magnus admits.</p><p>He gently slides Alec’s arm from his waist, rubbing a hand into his hair when he sits upright, legs dangling off the edge of the mattress. Elijah stares up at him. Magnus smiles sleepily, reaches a hand to his head and runs his fingers into his son’s dark, tousled hair. His thumb absently passes over one of Elijah’s small horns. They only just peek out the top of his black curls.</p><p>“You look so much like your dad, you know that?”</p><p>“I know, ayah,” says Elijah, blinks up at him. “Why do we look different? I know daddy has his runes because he’s a shadowhunter, but… daddy and I don’t look like you. Our skins are different colours.”</p><p>“Well, your mother had white skin like you,” says Magnus, gently touching Elijah’s cheek. “And mine… Well, my mother and father had darker skin, which is why I do.”</p><p>Elijah nods softly. “And daddy looks like nana, because she’s his mother.”</p><p>“That’s right,” Magnus says, smiles softly at his son. “It doesn’t mean we’re any different on the inside.” Elijah nods softly and Magnus gives him a gentle smile. “Come on now. Shall we get some breakfast?”</p><p>Elijah hesitates a moment, but his eyes drift to Alec and back and he nods. Magnus gently takes his hand and leads him from the bedroom to the kitchen.</p><p>“What do we feel like today?” Magnus asks as they reach the kitchen and he lifts Elijah up into a chair at the kitchen island.</p><p>“No, I wanna do it,” says Elijah, squirming in Magnus’s grasp before his ayah can put him down.</p><p>The warlock frowns, lifts his son to hold against his hip. “What?”</p><p>“I wanna make breakfast for you and daddy,” Elijah says.</p><p>Magnus can’t help but smile at the child’s determination. “Why’s that?”</p><p>Elijah looks at him strangely. “I thought grown-ups knew about everything,” he says, pouting when Magnus chuckles softly. “We learned all about today in kindergarten.” Magnus fights to remember the date. “Ayah, it’s June twenty-first. It’s Father’s Day.”</p><p>Magnus breathes out his realisation. “Oh, Eli, you don’t have to do anything just because of that. It’s a mundane holiday. I’m not sure your daddy has ever even heard of it.”</p><p>Elijah sticks out his bottom lip. “My kindergarten teacher told us all about it. She said they teach the older kids to make pancakes. My class all got a blank card to decorate, but I got two. One for you and one for daddy.”</p><p>“Oh, that’s sweet of you, Eli; thank you,” Magnus says gently. “How about this, okay? We’ll make some pancakes together before daddy wakes up, and we can bring him breakfast in bed.” He walks to the hob, sits Elijah down on the counter beside it. “You can bring your card into our bedroom to give to daddy when we bring him his breakfast, okay? How’s that?”</p><p>Elijah nods enthusiastically. “And your card, ayah! Don’t forget yours!”</p><p>“Of course,” says Magnus, leans in to pepper his face with light kisses, makes Elijah squeal and giggle in delight. “Let’s make some crêpes, okay? Your daddy prefers them to pancakes even though they’re very similar. You remember how to summon things?”</p><p>Elijah nods, brow furrowed in concentration. “I can do things that we have in the house,” he says, closes his eyes. Purple sparks crack his fingers, searching the apartment for the ingredients. “Ayah, what do we need?”</p><p>“Milk, two eggs, butter, flour,” Magnus lists the ingredients for him, smiles when the ingredients appear on the counter beside his son. “Careful with the eggs now.”</p><p>Elijah summons the ingredients, does perfectly until an egg appears in front of him, plummets towards the floor. Magnus flicks a trail of magic to catch it, shakes his head when his son apologises, assures him that it takes practice.</p><p>They make crêpes together. Magnus lets Elijah mix the ingredients by hand until he complains about his aching arm. He takes over then. Elijah flips the first crêpe with his magic and Magnus claps his excitement when it is a perfect, patchy golden brown.</p><p>“Beautiful,” he praises, his heart full when Elijah smiles his pride.</p><p>When they have a sizable stack, Magnus lets Elijah roll and decorate them. His son chooses icing sugar and chocolate sauce, tops it off with a scattering of halved strawberries. Magnus makes two mugs of coffee, places them on the tray beside the plate of crêpes.</p><p>“Looks amazing,” Magnus says, kisses Elijah’s temple. “I’m gonna take this in to daddy, okay? Do you want to get your cards?”</p><p>Elijah nods and leaps down from the chair. Magnus doesn’t have the heart to chide him for being reckless.</p><p>Magic opens the door for him as he carries the tray into his and Alec’s bedroom, finding his husband is still snoring softly. It is good to see him sleeping more since their marriage. Life has become healthier for him, working less and sleeping more, eating proper meals and just being overall <em>better</em>.</p><p>“Alec,” Magnus coaxes him, sets the tray down his vacated side of the bed before walking around to perch beside Alec, leaning over to brush the hair from his face and kiss his forehead. “Alec, darling, it’s time to wake up. Our son has a surprise for you.”</p><p>Alec hums and mumbles. “’s there coffee…?”</p><p>“Yes, my love, there’s coffee,” Magnus replies through a smile, reaches back for the mug. “Here. Sit up.”</p><p>There is a little grumbling, but Alec does so. His eyes are barely open even as he sits back against the headboard, takes his coffee in both hands and drinks deeply. Magnus runs a fond hand through his unruly locks. Although Alec isn’t the biggest fan of this time of day, mornings look gorgeous on him, all ruffled hair and squinted eyes and sleepy and <em>cute</em>.</p><p>“What’s today?” Alec asks, so slurred with sleep it’s almost ineligible.</p><p>“It’s Father’s Day,” says Magnus. “Elijah learned about it in kindergarten. It’s supposed to be about honouring dads.”</p><p>Alec squints at him dubiously, like he’s confused by these incessant mundane holidays that Elijah keeps bringing in to the house. They had done Christmas last year. Alec pretends to be grumpy about all the new traditions, but Magnus knows he loves to see his son happy like that. They are building a proper little family.</p><p>Footsteps drum outside and Alec sets his coffee down on the bedside table just in time. Elijah runs in clutching two cards in one hand, the biggest smile on his face. Magnus helps him onto the bed and he immediately flings himself at Alec, hugging him tightly.</p><p>“Happy Father’s Day,” Elijah mumbles into his shoulder.</p><p>Alec kisses his head. “What happens on this one then?”</p><p>Elijah pulls back from the hug to sit on Alec’s lap. “I made pancakes,” he says, points to the crêpes. Apparently, he still hasn’t quite grasped that word. “<em>And </em>I made cards.” He sets one very purposefully on Alec’s lap and leans over to do the same to Magnus. “And I’m lucky because all the other kids only have one dad, but I have two!”</p><p>Alec narrows his eyes and runs a hand down the back of Elijah’s head. “Well, we’re <em>more</em> lucky.”</p><p>Elijah frowns. “Why’s that?”</p><p>“Because we’ve got you,” Alec says, kisses Elijah’s forehead.</p><p>“Daddy!” their son complains, shying away and poking the card. “Open your card!”</p><p>“Okay, okay,” Alec chuckles, glances to Magnus. “Can’t be sappy for one minute in this house, can I?”</p><p>Magnus just shrugs and smiles, glances down to his own card. It is dark blue. Multi-coloured sequins are glued onto the front, spelling out: HAPPY FATHER’S DAY. Opening it, Magnus is met with a torrent of colour. Elijah had stuck white paper in the inside so he could draw an army of multi-coloured cats on one side. In each cat there is a word. Magnus strings the sentence together as: <em>I love you more than a million cats!</em></p><p>There is a bigger message, written in a large, childish hand on the other side.</p><p>
  <em>To Ayah,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Happy Father’s Day,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Lots of love from Eli xxx</em>
</p><p>Beneath the message are rows upon rows of pink hearts. Magnus blinks hard to avoid an unexpected swell of tears. He looks to Alec, who holds up his card so Magnus can see. It is the exact same message, although Elijah has written ‘daddy’ instead of ‘ayah’, and there is a drawing of what appears to be a whale on the other side, an arrowed line beneath it.</p><p>Below, Elijah has written: <em>I love you bigger than this big whale!</em></p><p>“He loves me this much. A <em>whale</em> much.” says Alec, almost a brag, and Magnus grins, shows Alec his own card. His husband’s eyes widen as he reads it. “A <em>million</em> cats?! That’s so many cats!”</p><p>“I think a million cats is about as big as a whale,” says Elijah matter-of-factly.</p><p>“Well, of course,” says Alec in agreement. “It’s a big thing, a whale. You could fit so many cats in a whale.” A wickedly playful light hits his eyes. “And I think all these hearts and kisses need to be claimed, so buckle up.”</p><p>Magnus watches fondly as his husband grabs his son in a tight hug, kissing him all over and making him squeal and try to scramble away, laughing the entire time. Their playfulness turns soft, Alec holding Elijah against his chest, marvelling at the crêpes when Elijah proudly thrusts the tray at him.</p><p>Alec glances across to Magnus, and the warlock absently palms the tears from his eyes. It isn’t from sorrow, not even a little. There is a warmth of the purest joy in his heart and he wants to pause time right here. He wants to live in this moment forever.</p><p>“Ayah?” Elijah asks, those big eyes a little worried now. “Are you crying…?”</p><p>Magnus shakes his head. “It’s just because I’m really happy,” he assures, pulls his son in to claim his kisses, cradling Elijah’s face in his hands. “I love you both so much.”</p><p>Magnus has had many titles. None of them matter anymore. Now, he is a father and a husband.</p><p>Those are the greatest things he will ever be.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>